Innovation

What have we learned from the FCC's wise inaction this week, in deciding to not vote to declare broadband a Title II telephone service before the election, and to ask more questions in a further Open Internet regulation inquiry about specialized and mobile services?

#1 Stakeholder collaboration/negotiation works. The FCC apparently now better recognizes that the open industry collaborative dynamic that has been so consistently successful in resolving most every other major Internet issue over the last couple of decades, can also succeed in appropriately resolving the FCC's Open Internet concerns now -- if only given the time and flexibility to negotiate a workable outcome.

#2 Apparently net neutrality is not the popular populist political issue it has been touted to be. The September-October period before an election is when the real political rubber meets the road.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 1, 2010

Contact: Scott Cleland

703-217-2407

FCC Chairman Appropriately Endorses Case-by-Case Open Internet Approach

WASHINGTON – Scott Cleland, Chairman of Netcompetition.org, released the following statement regarding the FCC’s Further Inquiry into the Open Internet proceeding.

Skype, one of the high priests of the net neutrality movement, that preaches for Title II monopoly regulation of all the broadband providers it already rides upon for free, has been caught in the act of being blatantly unfaithful to its widely-professed net neutrality principles, by blocking interconnectivity to Fring! 

Google has much to lose in its ill-advised PR and public policy war with Apple, its previous closest Silicon Valley ally.

Antitrust or Fiduciary liablility? Google's recent market behavior puts Google and its CEO Eric Schmidt in a lose-lose situation.

Curious. Very curious. Now reports have it that the FTC is investigating Apple for mobile ads, given what they learned from their ultimate approval of Google-Admob, despite that merger raising "serious antitrust issues." 

What's wrong with this picture?

First, apparently the FTC has concluded that the real risk to competition is not Google-AdMob (that had the #2 player Google buying #1 AdMob for ~75% market share of in-app mobile advertising), but a new entrant, Apple, that had no advertising share at all just a few months ago and bought the weak #3 competitor with less than 10% share.

The FCC is vastly understating the systemic risk involved in the FCC's radical "third way" regulatory surgery to the Internet, the communications sector and the economy.

At the recent Senate Health IT hearing, it was very good to hear Senator Wyden say that it's "appropriate for Congress... to start thinking... about an HOV lane for e-care for wireless broadband" and questioning why an emergency healthcare service should not be accorded priority transmission over less important/urgent services.

• This is a much more realistic, reasonable, and nuanced point-of-view than Senator Wyden's original net neutrality stance a few years ago when he said that: "all bits are created equal" on the Internet.  

Senator Wyden's moderating view on net neutrality reflects a better and growing understanding of how essential reasonable network management is. Communications networks have long accorded priority to first responders in a crisis.

The essential needs for prioritization of Internet traffic and reasonable network management are basically two-fold:

Google announced 4-9-10 that "we've decided to take speed into account in our search rankings" in a Google blog post by Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts entitled: "Using site speed in web search ranking." (Thanks to the Register's Cade Metz for flagging this issue.)

I highly recommend two oustanding op-eds that you should be sure to read if you care about the future of the Internet and FCC matters:

• FCC Commisioner Robert McDowell's outstanding op-ed in the Washington Post today entitled "Hands off the Internet"; and
• Former NTIA Administrator John Kneuer's different and excellent take in his op-ed for the Daily Caller today entitled "A Hippocratic Oath for the Internet."